A Day in the Life of Chaos

Lost among the many things President Ronald Reagan did to America during his eight years as president was one particular budget cutting measure.  Perhaps in these days of fiscal austerity it is good to look back to the past as a guide if for no other reason then to teach us about the ignorance of our as of yet "unmade" decisions.  Prior to Ronald Reagan you didn't see many homeless people on the streets.  Those that existed tended to live outside of society.  They were the "Hobos" of yesteryear.  America had a system of mental hospitals and for better or worse these institutions cared for and accommodated the nations mentally ill.  Reagan wanted to reduce corporate taxes and to find the money for this he had to cut the welfare state.  The result was the de-funding and closing of most of the nations large public mental hospitals.  The theory was that mental health care could be more efficiently provided by private companies.  Of course this only works with those

As we grow old we can't help but notice the effects on our bodies.  Age is not kind.  The young body is viewed as the ideal, the old body is the result of living life.  It is like an old car.  It is no longer shiny and beautiful, it doesn't run as well but while taking longer, it still gets you there.  It is almost as if we are a product.  When we are born we are wrapped in the cellophane of our mother's womb.  We enter the world free from blemish, our minds have yet to be written and our bodies yet to be scarred.  Like an annual growing from a seed we seem so free from declination.  Our flower has yet to bloom and our seeds have yet to fall.  When we do flower, in our minds we reach perfection.  As a father I remember the day when my son scarred himself for the first time.  The beautiful product once protected by plastic was no longer new.  The problem with aging is that for many of us, our bodies change yet our minds never do.  While we collect life experience and wisdo

Like everyone else I look on in horror at the pictures of Japan.  The tragedy and the pain.  The suffering people have been brought to their knees in a scene horrifically similar to the destruction of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.  Miles and miles of rubble is punctuated by fragments of still existing standing structures.  They rise from the debris defying the destruction around them yet isolated and alone.  With each day it seems like the horrors grow, thousands of bodies washing up on the shore line, lives shattered seemingly beyond repair. As if to add a punctuation mark on the horrific scene we learn of nuclear plants melting down.  It has been 66 years since the atomic bombs dropped yet once again the nuclear nightmare has returned.  It is always hard to know how to respond to suffering when you are an ocean away.  I sent some money to the Japanese Red Cross but it seems like a hallow gesture when they need so much more. Shinichi Izumi Over the years I have had a number of Japane

This morning as I put on my shirt for work for some reason I took note of the label.  It read simply, made in China.  Okay, no surprise right?  There are precious few articles  of clothing made in America aside from a few fraudulent labels attached in the Northern Marianas Islands saying Made in the USA.  The peculiarity of American territorial law allows these less then minimum wage workers the chance to pretend they are American by earning two dollars an hour to make our underwear.  No, this shirt was made in China.  As I often do at 6 o'clock in the morning, pre-caffeine and still trying to remember if it is shampoo then conditioner or conditioner then shampoo I had a vision. I wish it had been a saintly vision.  An apparition of the Virgin Mary in my shaving cream perhaps, or possibly a feeling of the divine as I washed each of my toes.  No, nothing so dramatic.  I simply thought of the factory in China where my shirt came from and how horrified the Chinese must be at the amo

A story I love to tell is about my child and when I took him to a pride festival.  He was probably about eight years of age and when we entered the event we were greeted by men holding hands with men, women with women and even elegant cross dressers and transvestites.  I consider myself a very tolerant person but I couldn't help but look.  "Wow, look at those guys." I thought, or "man, he is a good looking woman, check out the size of those hands though."  My son on the other hand entered the event and went straight for a sticker table festooning himself with ribbons and stickers.  The moral of the story is that he didn't see a thing.  He didn't see two men hug or two women kiss.  He didn't see the awkward transsexual or the flamboyant queen.  All he saw was an opportunity to score some cool stickers and pins.  Maybe snag some carnival beads. I tell this story because it is an example of how much a parents attitudes are reflected by their children.

Harry Cooper's goodbye is today.  In my office goodbyes tend to happen a lot.  There is a lot of mobility, especially among those that want to climb the ladder of promotion.  The ritual is usually the same, an obligatory awkward lunch where the office gathers and the boss says some sugar coated litany of words.  A plaque is given and the person moves on.  They clean out their desk and disappear.  You can always tell the guys that have been around,  their work area is covered with the most mementos of distant offices and past goodbyes. Honestly I am going to miss Harry a lot.  Harry is one of those people in my office that will come by and say hi.  He will sit and talk for awhile and then move on.  He doesn't want anything, he doesn't have an agenda.  He is just a nice guy and a working friend.  Harry is also black and even though he doesn't know it, has taught me a lot about race and what it is like to be a black man in the south.  You see Harry accepted me. In the

Yesterday there was a rally in Columbia.   Oh you probably wouldn't know it if you weren't there but we took our grievances to the steps of the South Carolina State House and demanded to be heard.  Pity there was no one inside.  Only a group of students snaking their way up behind the speaker.  A young black kid started dancing like Rocky Balboa with a towel around his neck.  Honestly he looked more like the Rocky of Rocky and Bullwinkle fame. Despite the lack of notice by those in power, for the couple hundred in attendance the cause was just.  It was a rally to support the union members in Wisconsin fighting a governor determined to strip them of their union rights.  The governor is a puppet of some of the most wealthy and powerful corporate interests in the nation, largely funded by the diabolical Koch brothers.  These right wing libertarian minded fanatics are quietly determined to fund the end of unions in America.   They pay for the Tea Party and fund their rallies.  Th

Human beings have secrets.  We all have them, some are little, some big.  Some life changing and some insignificant.  They can reflect past misgivings, hidden desires or future actions.  The Catholics figured it out.  Confess and they give you absolution.  Its easy, you do it behind a wall and it goes straight to the big guy.  Is there any wonder there are a lot fewer Jews.  For a Jew when you screw up it is time to deal with the consequence both here and in the afterlife.  Of course also mandating men having to cut their penis might have had something to do with it. There are a myriad of reasons we keep secrets.  Some are out of emotional necessity, some are simply humility. Every voluntary confession however it is done, is to meet a persons own needs.  It is mostly a way of relieving guilt that nags at the soul and festers like an open wound.  Of course most wounds heal but at the moment the panic of the guilt can overwhelm sensibility.  Confessions are rarely made for the benefit

As I march toward the future and age exercises its steady and firm grasp on my life, I find myself progressively looking for ways to detour its progress.  Its like I am standing behind a dike and bit by bit leaks are sprouting all along it.  Desperate to stop the flow of water I place my fingers in the holes, then my toes.  Right before me a huge hole opens and with no appendage left I open my my mouth, pick up a wad of cash and smash it into the increasing gap.   We all have things we hate about our own bodies.  In a cruel twist of fate the powers of the universe or, perhaps it was my grandfather's fault, wrapped hair frustratingly into my genetic code.  No, not hair in the good places like on my head.  Oh no, why would I want hair there?  It would only serve to shade my scalp from the sun and conceal the raw sexiness of my rounded skull.  As it is I have a built in oven I could fry an egg on in the summer if I wanted.  No, my grandfather willed me a bald head and hair in the mo

When you are a parent there are fuzzy invisible lines in life.  You don't know where they are or when they are crossed but inevitably when raising a child there is a point when they are.  One day you look back and realize something changed. It happens in the smallest things yet the ones that make you smile and also make you sad.  When you are a father and have a son there is some point when they stop holding your hand.  When kisses disappear and when hugs are farther and farther apart.  When the unbridled admiration a child holds for their parent isn't quite so strong, when they would rather spend a weekend with their friends than with you.  We look at the pictures that line our walls detailing each stage of their growth and wish we could step back for a moment in time.  This is not to diminish the pride we feel as they progress and become adults yet there is something innocent that seems gone.  I think this is one reason why some parents have children later into life.  They